1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer communications networks. More specifically, the present invention relates to computer high-speed networks linking geographically related users and to manners of implementing and operating such networks.
2. The Relevant Technology
Computer technology is breaking barriers to inter-personal communications at an amazing rate. Already, it is possible to communicate almost instantaneously with anyone in the world that has a computer and a telephone line. Computer networks, such as the Internet, link individuals and various types of organizations in world-wide digital communication. The Internet has almost unlimited promise for communications advances, but is limited by an overburdened and somewhat unsuited transmission medium.
In addition to the Internet, businesses, educational institutions, government agencies, and other similarly related entities also communicate over much smaller-scale networks, such as local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs). These small-scale networks, particularly LANS, operate at much higher speeds than the Internet, but are expensive to operate at large scales. Thus, a large gap exists, between the scope of coverage and speed of operation of the global, but relatively slow, Internet and the faster but more limited LANs and WANs. It would be advantageous to close this gap with larger-scale networks that operate at speeds close to that of LANS.
Several barriers exist to filling the gap between current limited coverage networks and the Internet. One such barrier is the xe2x80x9clast milexe2x80x9d dilemma. That is, the Internet runs at very high speeds over its backbone, but slows down considerably over its localized connections. Generally, the Internet relies upon standard telecommunications industry lines and switching equipment for this last mile. This infrastructure is designed for telephone communications, and is not well adapted to the packetized communications of digital networks. A dilemma lies, however, in replacing the telephone infrastructure with transmission mediums more suited to digital communications. It is currently considered prohibitively expensive to connect high speed communications lines down to the individual users of the Internet.
This fact, together with the general congestion of the Internet in general leads to a substantial slow down of Internet communications. It also limits the deployment of intermediate types of networks. A further barrier to the implementation of networks of varying scopes and to the new introduction of new paradigms for network communication comes in the form of financing. Such developments using current technology would be prohibitively expensive. Who is going to pay for this infrastructure?
Accordingly, a need exists for an intermediate sized network to close the gap between the world-wide Internet and current relatively small scale networks. Preferably, such an intermediate sized network operates at speeds similar to those of LANS, coverage both in geographical area and diversify of user type. Additionally any solution to this problem should also address financing of installation and should overcome the last mile dilemma. New technologies for achieving such a new paradigm in computer networking are similarly needed.
In order to overcome many or all of the above-discussed problems, the present invention comprises methods, apparatus, and systems for implementing Large-scale high speed computer network. The network may connect an entire neighborhood or city in networked communications, and accordingly, will be referred to herein as a Neighborhood Area Network (NAN). The NAN of the present invention is a network conducted on a unique scale with a unique clientele and is implemented in a manner that transcends traditional network boundaries and protocols. The NAN is not equivalent to a wide area network WAN, in part because it is essentially routerless. That is, while a plurality of NAN, may be interconnected through the use of routers, each individual NAN is preferably constructed without the use of internal routers. The NAN is unique from local area networks (LANs) as well. One reason is that, due to its many novel features, it can be of a size and scope previously unobtainable by conventional LANs.
The NAN is further unique because it is intended to cover and serve a selected geographical area and to blanket that geographical area, rather than functioning to serve a specific government, business, educational, or similarly related entity. Accordingly, the subscribers and users of the NAN may be substantially non-related in any traditional business manner. Furthermore, funding for the NAN, rather than being provided by a business-type entity or subsidized by a governmental organization, may be funded at least in part by an independent third party, such as a utility company and may be funded in total or in part by subscribers.
The NAN is also comparatively inexpensive to install, making the placement of a NAN in every neighborhood a real possibility. The NAN of the present invention is capable of eliminating the message traffic burden from the Internet, thereby speeding up the Internet, as it is adapted to be operated completely independent of the currently highly burdened telecommunications infrastructure (although Internet service may be provided over the NAN).
In one embodiment, the NAN is comprised of an optic fiber ring serving as the outer backbone of the NAN. The ring is preferably populated with one or more fiber boxes, each containing circuitry including switches, repeaters, gateways, etc. The fiber boxes in one embodiment connect the backbone to a central office or headquarters data center in which a server is preferably located. One or more gateways are preferably provided within the backbone for access by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). An inner backbone comprised of scalable 10 to 100 megabit coaxial cable preferably branches from the fiber backbone.
The coaxial cable preferably originates at the fiber boxes and branches through the selected geographical region (discussed herein as a neighborhood, but of course, any geographical scale could be served), connected by repeaters and nodes to individual communicating stations. The inner backbone is preferably partitioned for efficient routing of traffic.
The nodes in one embodiment comprise hubs. The repeaters may be placed three hundred feet apart along the coaxial cable, with hubs placed within thirty feet of every house, business, or other type of communicating station on the NAN. The hubs preferably connect to the local houses or other buildings with ten-base-T twisted pair copper wiring employing the Category 5 (Cat5) standard. The hubs in one embodiment are powered by one or more of the communicating stations that they service. Accordingly, each station connected to a hub may share the powering of the hub and may share the powering of other switching equipment of the NAN as well.
In one embodiment NAN software operates on the server, the fiber boxes, the repeaters, and the hubs. Client software preferably operates a computers located at each communicating station. Additional functional software or logic may also execute on communicating stations or computers of subscribing service providers. For example, software may communicate with an electric power meter for transmitting information regarding power consumption from a communicating station (the power customer) through the network to third party service provider, in this case, a utility power company.
In one embodiment, at least a portion of the backbone is installed over the right-of-way owned by or franchised to a public utility such as gas, electric, or power company. This negates any need for a separate utility administering the NAN to acquire a new easement or franchise from the landowners or the government entity of the geographic region. The NAN may be financed and/or installed through the cooperation of the utility service provider company. This arrangement allows the public utility service provider that would otherwise be unable to enter the digital communication market to participate. It is also advantageous in that a NAN developer or administration entity would otherwise likely be unable to afford to finance and install the NAN due to the cost and risk of funding and lack of sufficient rights-of-way.
In certain embodiments of an apparatus and method in accordance with the present invention, an independent entity may create a city-wide network or NAN. The network includes, in one embodiment, a fiber optic ring within the city to serve as a local backbone. The fiber optic ring may be fully redundant. That is, it preferably completes a loop such that any break in the loop will not shut the whole system down. The fiber can be laid inexpensively as distances are not great and thus, less expensive local short-distance-types of fiber cable can be used. A low cost fiber can be used, such as feeder fiber which is less costly, and which requires less labor to install.
The fiber backbone is preferably populated by fiber boxes having switches therein. Coaxial cable from switches to bridges and repeaters to hubs. The hubs may connect to client stations using twisted-pair, copper cabling. A central server may be used and may be located within a headquarters data center. A headquarters data center may be employed as a gateway for Internet service providers. In addition, the Internet service providers may enter the system through other gateways including one or more switches.
The fiber backbone may be laid using the franchise agreement granted to the power company within a city or region. Thus, as the entire network is laid independently, the ISP service is provided independent of the telecommunications line over the entire route. Additionally, all ISPs are available on the net allowing equal access without choking traffic.
The infrastructure is preferably upgradable from 10 megabit to gigabit technology over the same lines, such that the lines need not be relaid in order to upgrade. Services that can be provided include surveillance, on-line books, two-way multi camera, schools, etc. Additionally, IPBX, telephone, television, CATV, and video on demand can be provided over the NAN. Video can be provided allowing independent selection, broadcast, start time and may be buffered to the user in real time.
The NAN also preferably incorporates one or more multi-port switches which are configured to truncate broadcast data. The multi-port switch is preferably an indoor switch but is contained in an aluminum pedestal of dimensions approximately 3 by 2 by 2 feet and is environmentally controlled.
The repeaters in preferred embodiments convert the data from the switches to be transmitted over coaxial cable and are preferably semi-intelligent. In one embodiment, the repeaters are housed out of doors within a protective pedestal. The pedestal may be located on the ground or hung from power lines.
The bridges are, in preferred embodiments, high speed with a look-up binary tree and are preferably contained in the protective pedestals. The bridges also filter out broadcast traffic. The hubs route traffic to subscribing communicating stations and convert from coaxial to twisted pair cable. The hubs are connected with a T-connector and powered by the cooperative power coupler of the present invention.
The P-coupler preferably includes a series of transformers, one at each communicating station. The communicating station connect with Cat5 wiring to the hub through a home connection box. The home connection box preferably provides convenient connections for power to the hub and for transmit and receive lines. The lines at the home connection box are wired alphabetically. The home connection box connects preferably connects with Ethernet cabling to a network card located within a computer at the client station.
A modular power connector is preferably located at the home connection box. The wiring from the communicating station to the hub operates, in one embodiment, at ten megabytes per second. Three pairs of lines are preferably used, a transmit twisted pair, a receive twisted pair, and an A/C twisted pair running from the transformer to power the hub.
The NAN of the present invention is a high speed routerless network which differs from traditional large scale networks in that traffic is routed locally and that it has the speed of a small local area network but with many more stations connected thereto. The large amount of communicating stations is facilitated by the many novel aspects of the invention.
The NAN can be described as a baseband network rather than a broadband network because it addresses communicating stations directly and linearly rather than through broadcasting of data. The NAN of the present invention defines what cannot be routed rather than defining the types of packets that can be routed. The NAN also preferably uses converse/inverse filtering. Because the communications traffic is direct-routed, neighbor to neighbor communications is very high speed and occupies only a small part of the NAN. It also reduces the burden on the Internet.
The NAN of the present invention is unique in that its clients are merely geographically related, rather than being business, government, educational institution, or otherwise related. Additionally, individual subscribers pay for the continued operation of the NAN rather than a single large entity. The NAN may be partially funded by public service companies such as utility companies. In one embodiment, the power company pays a portion of the installation fees in return for receiving a portion of the subscription and allows the infrastructure to be installed along its rights of way for which it has a business franchise. Accordingly, the NAN need not have a separate franchise and need not be a public utility.
Additionally, the power company or other public utility may receive benefits in the form of cheaper monitoring of the usage of its services. For instance, power companies may be able to automatically read the meters of the subscribers through the NAN, rather than having to send out meter readers, thereby reducing the cost. Billing and payment may also be automated over the NAN, further reducing costs.
The NAN may be administered by a private company, but is preferably not controlled by any central agency, governmental body or other entity, and thus, is a true community network.
Subscribers are allowed to join for an initial hook-up fee and a monthly service fee, similar to cable or telephone service. Upon paying the hook-up fee, customers are connected and provided with access to the NAN, but if they do not pay the monthly fee, some or all their services may be cut off.
The subscribers are all provided with an IP address upon the first use of their account. The IP address is in one embodiment semi-permanent in that it is retained until the subscriber changes network cards or computers. The IP addresses are retained in a binding within a server located at the central office. The server sends out the IP addresses, and the IP addresses are retained within bridges and within the switches in order to route the traffic accordingly.
The subscribers are preferably provided with Internet service from outside ISP which connect to the backbone through gateways. Internet service fees may be part of the subscription or may be part of independent subscription fees.
These and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth hereinafter.